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She smeared a little cheese on her pinkie-finger and let the dog lick it clean, his nub of a tail wagging hard.

“Princess, may I ask a question?”

“You just did,” she said while chewing.

“May I ask another two?”

“Only because I’m feeling sweet.”

“I know what games are…”

“Of course you do, scramble-head! I met you at games, you weren’t a very good fighter, but you were monkey-funny.”

“… but what is the Apocalypse?”

She rolled her eyes now.

“Boring god things.”

“Like what sort of things?”

“Uhh! The boring old Praxeter talks and then they show the godwords. Because if we heard the voice of Thumos, we would be deaf, HIS VOICE IS SO LOUD. So he writes in fire, and that’s the month’s message. Always riddles that make no sense. It’s a waste of time, but we all have to go.”

“So the god writes the words?”

“That’s what they say.”

“How do you know the Praxeter doesn’t write them?”

“He might. I don’t know. I don’t care. It’s just something we have to sit through before we get to watch the Lunar Games.”

I started to ask another question, but now the princess said, “Enough about that. It’s BORING,” and smeared cheese on my lips. Before I could react, Merkin put his paws on my chest and started licking my mouth in a way you’d have to pay a whore extra for. I pushed him off, but the princess said, “Let him, let him!” laughing hard. So I put my hands down and pressed my lips shut as tight as I could and suffered the little fucker to paint my face with spit. Worse, every third or fourth lap he tried to breach the seal of my lips with his nasty little tongue, as if I might be hiding more cheese in my mouth and he meant to have it. I made my face go dead and just blinked slowly at the princess through the assault.

“Hahahahaha! You two kiss like new-married people! Merkie is your husband, Kitch! Hahahahaha!”

I wanted to say something smart to her, but if I’d have tried, I’d have felt Merkin’s tongue on mine, and I’d have had to pull his little cunt head off on general principles.

But I bore it until he got tired and let me be.

It was a long while later when our litter stopped, and I accompanied Princess Renata to the amphitheater known as the Halfmoon, my face tight with dried dog spit.

As Galva and I had seen from the cloud-ship, there were two great public arenas in Erydon—the Halfmoon and the Bone Palace. This Halfmoon was the smaller of the two, though both were large enough to seat the whole city. This was the one meant for theater and religion. As such, it was not fully in the round, but a half-circle focused on a stage. In the middle of the stage lay a long slot through which a rock slab would emerge, its mechanism powered by hidden hilloxen, those house-sized ox-cousins found only on this side of the Thralls. Above this and in the distance stood Thumos’s Throne, the smoky black mountain that dominated the view west and had no peer near it. It was like some fell exile from the Thralls, sent west for its crimes to stand alone over a wicked city.

It was quite a thing to see so much of the city’s population filing into this place—all the Erydoni who were not ill or performing some necessary function were here. I looked up, and what should I see but five of the kingdom’s seven cloud-ships floating above our heads—their crews and passengers would see the godwords, too.

We sat in the royal watchbox, joining the king, queen, and ministers high up. They were all in fine spirits. The king didn’t care for this priesty karkery any more than his daughter did, but after this was done, everyone would process over to the Bone Palace for bloodsport. Now an acolyte blew a horn, so loud it almost hurt the ear—these karks were expert builders, and the acoustics of the place were such that you could hear a mouse fart from the stage, let alone the blare of a giant ram’s horn.

It was at this moment I once again saw the geezer known as the Praxeter, but he was closer than he had been on the cloud-ship, so I got a decent look at him.

If I expected an old bastard, I was mistaken, for this critter’s beard was black-brown and youthful. His dome was shaved bald, and that circlet of molten metal smoked atop it, burning him not at all. He was exceptionally tall, perhaps ten feet to judge him against the other priests, and his bloodred robes and black sash snugged him in fit and lean.

When he spoke, the stones of the amphitheater bore his words and gave them back louder.

I didn’t speak Erydon at the time, and never learned it well, so I can’t tell you what he said. But he was a hell of a speaker. When he was done with his oration, the whole stadium clapped that folded-arm clap of theirs, and for a long time as well. Then a hush went over them. The Praxeter gestured, a strange bell sounded, and smoke rose from the slot in the stage, first a little and then quite a bit. This was the moment Thumos was supposed to be etching the godwords into stone with his fiery fickle finger.

When the smoke stopped, the hilloxen somewhere behind the walls lowed as they were whipped and made to pull a winch that pushed up a tablet that bore the godwords.

On this tablet, in great burned-in characters still smoldering, read three lines in their curious script.